Some boards more liberal, admission process needs review: DU VC on admissions row

New Delhi: Students who came from more liberal school boards did pose a difficulty to students who did not have such liberal marking in their schools and this affected admission, Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh said. Students who came from boards with stricter marking schemes tended to "suffer" in admissions to Delhi University he added.

"We cannot ignore the performances of students of different boards, like Uttar Pradesh Board… They are not liberal vis-à-vis other boards. They are very tight while giving marks. So their students may be suffering; they are. If they want to take admissions in Delhi University, they don't have a fair chance," Singh admitted in an interview to the Indian Express.

Delhi University is currently dealing with a debate over regional skew in the admissions process with 95% of unreserved seats in 100% cutoff courses going to students from the Kerala State Board which has been criticised as having a far more liberal marking scheme than others. DU uses the Class 12 marks to calculate admission criteria and this is more liberal in Kerala.

Yogesh Singh suggested the normalisation of marks as a way to equalise admission chances. "Suppose in one board, the topper is of 90% and in another board, the topper is of 70%, we make all 100% normalise the marks of all students and then determine merit. This is also a technique but it is slightly difficult to implement because for some of the boards we may not get the data that is accurate. There may be some issues, but it is doable. Like BITS (Birla Institute of Technology) used to do it in the initial stage," he said.

He also discussed the viability of other options such as granting admission on the basis of the Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET) or by creating a unique entrance test for Delhi University alone which could provide the sole basis for admission. Alternatively, the admission could be 50% entrance exam based and 50% marks based in such a system, the VC suggested.

Singh said DU was looking at how to conduct admissions next year, and the process would be finalised in an Academic Council (AC) meeting on December 10, after approval from the Executive Council (EC) on December 17.